Name: How to Stew Fish
Ingredients: large soles or turbot; coarse sea salt; sliced lemon; water or fish stock

Why it works: Turbot and fish work together. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 153 recipes. Both carry 2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

How to Stew Fish

Ingredients

large soles or turbot
coarse sea salt
sliced lemon
water or fish stock

Directions

Remove the flesh from the bones of the fish, cutting it cleanly.
Roll the flesh into fillets or cut it into cutlets.
Use the bones and heads to make the gravy.
Stew the fish in the same way as if it were cooked whole.
Serve the fish with the gravy poured over it and garnish with sliced lemon.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

Turbot + fishtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together153 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-octenal (fatty, green).
Lemon + fishtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,889 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Turbot + lemontop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together273 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).